Community Renewal Fund and Levelling Up Fund in Wales

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees, I think for the first time. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) on securing the debate and covering in such detail some of the challenges of the levelling-up fund. In similar fashion to the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb), I say to the Minister and all Conservative Members present that I welcome any funding that brings investment into my Ogmore constituency. I am not against funding coming into any of my communities.

I happen to represent some of the most economically deprived parts, not just of Wales but of the UK. I am well aware that investment is needed in my constituency. That investment could be in jobs, growth and physical regeneration, including around the town centre. In my constituency there are smaller towns in many of the valleys. Historically, they were full of hustle and bustle because of industry that has now left those communities, so they need the investment that the Welsh Government have provided until now, with European Union funding, but which has also come directly from the two local authorities that my constituency sits in.

I am not happy with the process. I think that it should be decided within the Welsh Government, because that is the system that has been in place for EU structural funding since 1999, and we should respect the devolution settlement. However, I am realist. I am not in government in Westminster, so I genuinely want to work with the Wales office and Housing, Communities and Local Government Ministers to ensure that investment comes to my constituency.

The first bidding round is on 18 June. Two local authorities, as I have set out, cover my constituency, and a third borders my constituency—I can see the right hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) looking straight at me on a screen. I have been lobbied by officials in Bridgend, Rhondda Cynon Taf and the Vale of Glamorgan authorities about a possible bid in my constituency covering all three county areas. This is a very exciting and positive bid that could bring about meaningful change and regeneration to the second largest—I represent several towns; my constituents would argue which is the second largest—town in my constituency, to bring about meaningful investment that could be of real benefit to the constituencies of the hon. Member for Bridgend (Dr Wallis) and of the right hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan.

However, there is confusion. It is not clear which bid I would support, because my authorities wish to put in other bids. Officers have no relationship with HCLG officials, because there has been 20 years of separation following devolution. They are therefore starting from scratch on relationships and conversations. When, as MPs we ask Ministers, either in HCLG or in the Wales Office, who is leading on what, there is confusion. There is not a straightforward answer.

At the last Welsh questions, I asked the Secretary of State for Wales whether he could try to explain the process, and I then wrote to him. Despite various HCLG Ministers, including the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, telling me that there would be two further rounds of bidding, no dates are available for those rounds. The Secretary of State told me that there would possibly be only one additional round of funding in the comprehensive spending review for the next round, so what happens to the third round? What are the dates towards which local authorities should work to ensure that they can put in those bids?

Alongside that, we have the community renewal fund. As I mentioned, Ms Rees—you know my constituency very well indeed—my seat sits in the RCT and Bridgend County Borough Council area. RCT is part of the community renewal fund priority bidding area, but Bridgend County Borough Council is not. Despite the deprivation—the Minister and I have corresponded about this—and the challenges facing those communities, it is not seen as a priority area for the UK Government, and I have still not got to the bottom of why neighbouring authorities, including seats with fewer areas of deprivation and fewer challenges in skills and growth, have been prioritised, but mine has not. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) will make similar points about his county area—as, indeed, will my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones).

In closing, I have a series of questions. We rarely have an opportunity to question the Minister in such a direct way. Could I have the dates for rounds 2 and 3 of the funding bids for my local authority? In written answers I was told that they were not available. What happens to priority bidding if there are multiple authority bids from two or three authorities? Will there be second and third funding rounds? After priority bids, of which there is one, the Welsh Secretary says that other bids can be supported in the usual way. Will the Minister set out what the usual way is? I have yet to find an answer.